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[Report] Mitochondrial endonuclease G mediates breakdown of paternal mitochondria upon fertilization

ScienceNOW - Fetched: July 21st, 2016, 3:00pm UTC

Mitochondria are inherited maternally in most animals, but the mechanisms of selective paternal mitochondrial elimination (PME) are unknown. While examining fertilization in Caenorhabditis elegans, we observed that paternal mitochondria rapidly lose their inner membrane integrity. CPS-6, a mitochondrial endonuclease G, serves as a paternal mitochondrial factor that is critical for PME. We found that CPS-6 relocates from the intermembrane space of paternal mitochondria to the matrix after fertilization to degrade mitochondrial DNA. It acts with maternal autophagy and proteasome machineries to promote PME. Loss of cps-6 delays breakdown of mitochondrial inner membranes, autophagosome enclosure of paternal mitochondria, and PME. Delayed removal of paternal mitochondria causes increased embryonic lethality, demonstrating that PME is important for normal animal development. Thus, CPS-6 functions as a paternal mitochondrial degradation factor during animal development. Authors: Qinghua Zhou, Haimin Li, Hanzeng Li, Akihisa Nakagawa, Jason L. J. Lin, Eui-Seung Lee, Brian L. Harry, Riley Robert Skeen-Gaar, Yuji Suehiro, Donna William, Shohei Mitani, Hanna S. Yuan, Byung-Ho Kang, Ding Xue

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